Various methods of knitting fur are known to the art. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,416,758--Knowles, a yarn-like strand is formed by inserting a bunch of hairs from a fur-bearing animal into each of a series of side-by-side loops in a thread of cotton, rayon or the like. The thread is pulled tight to pull the hairs in place in the loops and the resulting strand is fashioned into a fabric by knitting or crocheting. The hairs do not radiate outwardly from all sides of the thread but are disposed substantially in or adjacent a single plane on opposing sides of the thread.
Because Knowles requires the insertion of the hair into the loops of the thread which is an extremely time consuming operation, such an article is more expensive to manufacture than need otherwise be.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,805,564--Moore, fibres at the edges of skins of fur-bearing animals are joined by knitting to form a fabric having parallel blended stripes.
Moore suffers from the drawback that it cannot be fashioned into seamless garments of a variety of shapes and provides a finished fabric which is relatively wide and must be cut and sewn into a garment in the same way as skins of animals.
Canadian Patent No. 1107487--Lishman, describes a fabric formed by weaving, knitting or crocheting strips of fur-bearing skin having oppositely facing furry surfaces formed by twisting the strips to form an elongated longitudinally extended core having hairs standing rigidly outward of the skin and which fully encircles the core. The core may, optionally, fully embrace a non-furry length of cord or thread material to provide reinforcement to the strip of skin, particularly, during the twisting step and also when the fabric is worn.
However, the present invention provides improved strength products either requiring or not requiring the twisting of a strip of skin prior to manufacture into a fabric formed therefrom.